Thousands of Marchers Conduct Multiracial Protest in Cape Town

A multiracial crowd of thousands of South Africans surged through this city today in a march permitted by the Government. It was the biggest public display of opposition to apartheid that the nation has witnessed since emergency rule was imposed more than three years ago.

Unapproved outdoor political gatherings are officially banned by the white-minority Government, and often broken up violently by the police. But Acting President F. W. de Klerk, faced with the determination of the march's organizers to go ahead, quietly arranged for permission to be granted by H. S. van Wyk, the city's acting chief magistrate.

Mr. de Klerk is the leader of the National Party, which won national elections last week for the white chamber of Parliament. He is expected to be elected to a full term as President in a vote in Parliament on Thursday.

No one here could recall any precedent for the South African Government's granting formal authorization to a protest against its own policies. And this protest took place in the core of a city, an area designated by law for whites only, while most other protests have generally been confined to the nonwhite townships.

The Government has not explained why it permitted this march. But given Mr. de Klerk's stated commitment for change, it was believed that he could not afford to be seen cracking down on the very people with whom he has promised to develop contacts in coming weeks and months.

''Today we have scored a great victory for justice and peace,'' said the Anglican Archbishop, Desmond M. Tutu, who was one of the march organizers. He told the demonstrators that President de Klerk could learn from them. Visible Cooperation

Most of the estimated 20,000 demonstrators were black or of mixed race, but many hundreds of whites mingled with them in the packed but buoyant procession - including Cape Town's Mayor, Gordon Oliver and some of his city councilmen.

Archbishop Tutu walked arm-in-arm with Mayor Oliver and Sheik Nazeem Mohammed, the president of the Muslim Judiciary Council, who represented Cape Town's Indian population.

''We have already won, Mr. de Klerk,'' the Anglican cleric said. ''If you know really what is good for you, join us in the struggle for this new South Africa.''

Mr. de Klerk has promised an evolutionary shift away from white rule and a greater measure of responsibility for the black majority.

But the Acting President's waiving of the prohibition on such demonstrations, while consistent with his call for racial conciliation, did not placate the marchers. Rather, they seemed to consider their success a watershed in the continuing campaign of civil disobedience against apartheid.

''He's in such an extraordinarily difficult position given the fact that they have the laws on the books,'' said a European diplomat who watched the march. The envoy suggested that Mr. de Klerk's own white constituency would not let him overlook the continued flouting of legislation on racial separation and dissent.

Reporters put the number of those marching and their supporters at about 20,000. Another organizer, the Rev. Allan Boesak, who heads the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, said 100,000 people had joined in. Anthems of Justice

No uniformed policemen were in sight as the procession emerged into the warm spring sunshine after a short service at St. George's Anglican Catherdral and inched down Adderley Street singing the American civil rights hymn ''We Shall Overcome'' and anthems of the campaign against apartheid. Municipal traffic officers stopped cars to let the marchers pass.

Despite the lack of the police, there was no breakdown in order.

''I want them to know that the South Africa we want is the South Africa we are seeing today,'' said the Rev. Frank Chikane, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches.

In contrast, a smaller march in downtown Cape Town a week and a half ago was broken up by riot policemen using whips and water cannon. That and subsequent violence in the black and mixed-race townships around Cape Town touched off today's march, which was organized to call attention to allegations of police brutality.

But the march conveyed a broader, more optimistic message of multiracial solidarity. ''This city is in technicolor,'' Archbishop Tutu quipped. A Festive Crowd

Marshals wearing red ribbons around their heads or arms tried to clear a path through the jostling, dancing crowds that filled most of the seven lanes of Adderley Street. The march took more than an hour to travel the mile from St. George's Cathedral to City Hall.

The demonstrators had been instructed in advance to maintain nonviolence and warned that anyone who caused trouble would be considered a police provocateur and ejected from the march.

Some of the demonstrators waved banners and placards. A loud cheer arose from the crowd as some young men unfurled two black, green and yellow flags of the African National Congress, the nationalalist movement outlawed here since 1960. During the speeches later from a balcony at city hall, a white youth, his face masked by a jacket tied around his head stepped forward to tie one of the A.N.C. flags to the wrought-iron balustrade.

Before the march dispersed, about three and a half hours after it began, Hilda Dude, an official of the United Democratic Front, compared what was happening here to the transition to black rule under way in neighboring Namibia.

''It is Namibia today, but tomorrow it will be South Africa,'' Mrs. Dude said.

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A version of this article appears in print on September 14, 1989, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: Thousands of Marchers Conduct Multiracial Protest in Cape Town. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe